In a network utilizing the code division multiple access technology, a user terminal determines operations of DRC pointing and sector handover mainly depending on measuring the base station pilot channel strength.
Taking a CDMA High Rate Packet Data (HRPD) system as an example, when in a connected state, a user terminal needs to measure the pilot channel strength corresponding to each sector in a current active set, select a sector with the strongest signal and point the DRC to the sector, and a base station transmits data to the user terminal using the sector which the user terminal DRC points towards.
When in the connected state, the user terminal needs to measure the pilot channel strength corresponding to each neighbor cell, and makes determination and selection using a handover threshold, and reports the measured pilot strength of each neighbor cell to the base station by a routing update message, to demand handover-adding or handover-dropping a certain sector, and the base station completes the system resource updating and then sends a handover indication message to the user terminal so as to complete the final handover operation.
Moreover, during the process of evolution, the CDMA HRPD network may keep coexisting with a network utilizing other wireless access technology such as the Long Term Evolution (LTE) system network,. During the coexistence period, there will be interconnection and intercommunication between various networks. A multi-mode user terminal will also choose to monitor or directly try to switch into a sector in a different system by measuring a pilot strength of the different system and according to a certain handover strategy when in an idle state or a connected state.
It can be seen from the above description about the DRC pointing and handover determination that, when selecting the DRC pointing and a new sector that will be handover-added or handover-dropped, a user terminal will only be influenced by a pilot strength measurement result, but does not consider the practical load condition of the present base station system. On one hand, the user terminal points the DRC to a certain sector or requests to handover-add a certain sector, or can not hand-drop a certain sector at once, the system load in this sector may thus be further increased; on the other hand, the sector that the user terminal request to handover-add may reject these handover requests because of the limitation of the system capacity, or disestablishes the link of part of the present users, thus causing poor user experience.